Of jade and concubines

Call something forbidden and I will be that much more determined to get to it. We are all that way, really. Today, the Imperial Palace within the Forbidden City was swarming with thousands of people just like me ... hell-bent on seeing a place designed to keep the masses out. The emperors must be rolling in their graves.

Wandering the miles of courts and apartments of courtesans, I am at once speeding up and slowing down. I lengthen my stride and gear up to see everything. I try to notice every detail, soak up millions of objects and feel every signal my senses detect. The roof tiles look just like in kung-fu movies. The shady courtyards tempt me into palace after palace. I peer through the cloudy glass windows and take a look. The rooms look like their tenants locked up for the day, and decided to never come back.

But oh, the luxury. Every room is filled with painstakingly painted scrolls, porcelain, silk, jade ... every meal was at least 100 courses, every dish was prepared twice and taste-tested in case of being poisoned. No wonder the aristocracy wanted to keep commoners from ever laying eyes on the excess their taxes provided.

I have to surrender after seeing only a quarter of the grounds. It's just too big. I end up in the Garden of Tranquility and sit in a stone courtyard, no doubt in the exact spot where some concubine played mah-jong while coquettishly fluttering her fan. On a day like today, with a breeze only slightly easing the heat, I hear a teacup clink in its saucer that could have been an echo from centuries before.

That's when I get it- that moment of being in a place and holding it in your hand. Racing around as I always do to see it all and check it off my list, I only realize how little I see when I get home. Here, in this garden, doing nothing, seeing nothing, I finally feel it in the company of ancient, gnarled trees. I am present. I capture the moment, put it in my pocket, and tuck it away forever in case I never have the chance to return.

The guide books are right. Don't try to see it all in one day.

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